


make you feel

by locationist



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 乐华七子NEXT | NEX7, 우주소녀 | Cosmic Girls | WJSN
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 04:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16381484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/locationist/pseuds/locationist
Summary: There's something very suffocating about being stuck in a car with someone you've had a crush on since you were sixteen.





	make you feel

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know why but this fic is set in america.

Zhengting tells stories like he does most things – with grand gesticulations, tongue tripping over words that come too fast, spilling out of his mouth without double-checking. His eyes light up, recalling different details that are slightly different in each repetition, and Chengxiao doesn't know how to tell him that she's already heard this story three times over the past week. 

"Xiaoxiao," Zhengting frowns after a lull of silence. The engine of his hand-me-down 2002 Camry rumbles underneath that. Chengxiao hadn't even realized she'd been zoning out. "Stop gripping the handle." He reaches over to nudge her shoulder with his elbow.

"Oh." She hadn't realized she was doing that, either. Instinct to hold onto something that'll make you feel steady when Zhengting starts taking his hands off the wheel to recount Wenjun sleepwalking off his bunk halfway through the night. Her palm's sweaty when she uncurls her fingers. She wipes it against her track shorts. "Sorry."

Zhengting hums, appeased, looking over his shoulder before changing lanes. At least he checks his blind spot.

There's something very suffocating about being stuck in a car with someone you've had a crush on since you were sixteen. Especially if that car has broken AC, and the car ride is five hours long, sans bathroom breaks, and your crush is a relatively horrible driver and won't stop talking for long enough so you can drift off into sleep and wake up only when you've arrived at your house or are shaken awake by Zhengting honking at someone who cut him off in the carpool lane. They'd argued an hour ago over a pit stop, and it went something like this:

 _CHENGXIAO (checking the GPS):_ Take the next exit.

 _ZHENGTING (craning his neck to check the next exit sign):_ I don't think that's the right one? Unless you want to go to – _he squints at the sign_ – Serenity Hills Memorial Park.

 _CHENGXIAO (rolling her eyes):_ I have to use the bathroom.

 _ZHENGTING:_ I told you to go the last time we stopped! And I told you not to get the Big Gulp of Coke! I told you you'd have to go to the bathroom, and you know what I said when you didn't listen to me! I'm not stopping!

 _CHENGXIAO (unfazed by all of Zhengting's yelling after being subjected to it for nearly eighteen years):_ Well, good thing you have leather seats because I guess I'm just going to have to pee in your car.

 _ZHENGTING:_ Look! Now there's so much traffic I can't even get to the exit!

 _CHENGXIAO:_ Also you drank most of the Coke anyway! "I told you not to get the Big Gulp," my ass!

 _ZHENGTING (looking over his shoulder and turning on the blinker):_ Ah, shit. Fine, fine, fine!

Chengxiao honestly doesn't know why she likes Zhengting.

"What a coincidence," Meiqi, her roommate, had whistled when Chengxiao told her the whole spiel after a couple times of Zhengting showing up outside their door. "If I had a crush on someone I'd known since kindergarten I would've left the country for university."

Chengxiao, from where she'd been lying face-down in her bed, groaned. "What do you think I should do then?"

Meiqi looked over at her sympathetically, eyelash curler working on one eye. "Oh, Xiaoxiao," she sighed. "If you say that he only sees you as his little sister," she moved on to the other eye. "You should study abroad next year."

Unfortunately, Chengxiao had missed the deadlines for all the year-long programs aside from the one for Canada, and she wasn't sure that was far enough away for Meiqi's standards.

Maybe it's like this: maybe she likes Zhengting because in a panic created by this kid four grades below her that she tutored confessing to her and asking her how to use the equation of a straight line in the same breath, she'd blurted out that she already liked someone else.

"Who?" Justin had asked, sounding skeptical. Chengxiao had tried not to stare at the enormous zit growing on his chin as if it held all the secrets of the universe.

"Zhu Zhengting."

There'd been a silent chorusing of _oh shit, oh shit, oh shit_ pounding in Chengxiao's ears. And then Justin had nodded like this was a satisfactory answer, and plugged in the wrong number for b.

Maybe she likes Zhengting because _everyone_ likes Zhengting. Even Xuanyi Wu, who had shunned the rest of them that knew each other from suffering in Chinese school together on Saturdays, claiming she was "too cool for that now." Zhengting was loud, but his loudness was funny, and he had a heart too big for his chest that it had to lend itself elsewhere, usually through nagging and/or being overly-affectionate.

And maybe she likes Zhengting because he's unfairly handsome and he knows it. He'd been working on his college applications while Chengxiao was a sophomore, and they'd been sitting across from each other at the library when he whispered, "Hey, Xiaoxiao. What do you think my weaknesses are?"

Chengxiao only pulled her earbuds out of her ears when he'd started pelting her with bits of his old chemistry homework. "You think you're the most handsome guy in the entire world."

"Hey!" he said, slamming a hand against her textbook. "I'm being serious here!" Chengxiao just laughed at his "serious" expression that threatened to crack with each passing moment.

But really, maybe it's like this:

"Xiaoxiao," Zhengting says, shaking her shoulder lightly. When she blinks awake, the sky is a darkening blue outside and the window's rolled down a little, letting in fresh, cool air. "Wake up. We're outside your house."

She blinks. "Oh." Her thoughts feel fuzzy and there's a crick in her neck from where her head lolled to the side. She rubs her eyes. "Sorry."

Zhengting laughs at that. Sometimes Chengxiao forgets Zhengting's smile, and every time she rediscovers it it's like falling in love with the most beautiful boy she's ever known over and over again. "Sorry for what?" he says. "Oh, wait, you've got some drool...Here, lemme –"

Because Chengxiao likes the way Zhengting's eyes seem to sparkle even in the dismal dusk lighting, the way she and Zhengting always argue over the stupidest things, the way Zhengting's not all that great of a driver but, admittedly, still better than her, the way Zhengting tells his stories too fast, hands gesturing over everything, laughing too hard at his own jokes. The way Zhengting reaches over now and wipes the corner of her mouth with his thumb and a gentle smile – and Chengxiao _knows_ –

"I like you, Zhengting."

In this moment, everything freezes – Zhengting from where he's moving back to where he'd been sitting before he reached over, Chengxiao from where she wishes she'd been gripping the handle hard enough to keep herself from spontaneously combusting. There's a silent chorusing of _oh shit, oh shit, oh shit_ pounding in her ears, and then there's:

Both the corners of Zhengting's lips, pulling into a smile so big it could crack his face.

And maybe, it's just like that.

 


End file.
